Patch 7.14

Welcome to patch 7.14. This patch drops a lot of names we haven’t heard in a while, from Singed to Garen to Diana to… well at this point, we’re just rattling off the table of contents in random order. Many of these champions have been sitting in obscurity for a while, and we’re happy to dust them off.

We’ve got some shake-ups on the item front as well. The Thornmail update gives tanky champs access to Grievous Wounds, with Bramble Vest as a stepping stone component along the lines of Hexdrinker, QSS, and other “I build into a bigger version of myself” items. We’ve also taken the lethality items into the shop to ensure they’re offering assassins meaningful, satisfying choices.

And finally, we'd be remiss not to mention the shadow lurking on the horizon. Keep an eye out for Kayn, not that it'll matter once he steps out from the wall behind you.

7/17/2017 Balance Update

While we wanted to make Duskblade a better purchase, we definitely went overboard. Reining in Nightstalker's damage spike is a quick fix to curb the mid-game dominance its users are enjoying; further changes will likely follow in 7.15 as well.

Alistar has always needed to get up close and personal, but these days he has to stay there a bit longer to access the full extent of his crowd control. As a result, the Minotaur needs to be a bit tankier when he commits to a fight.

R - Unbreakable Will

DAMAGE REDUCTION :

[50/60/70%]

⇒

55/65/75%

CLARITY Now displays how much damage Unbreakable Will is mitigating per damage instance (visible only to Alistar and his attacker)

Our goals today are the same as patch 7.11: we’re continuing to trim strengths aside from Caitlyn’s primary contributions (smart trap placement and juicy Headshots). Our previous changes to reduce the Sheriff’s sustained damage in the late game didn’t go far enough in this direction so we’re continuing along the path.

Base stats

ATTACK SPEED GROWTH :[4%]⇒ 2%

Cho'GathE now only applies to next three attacks, but does significantly more damage. Q mana cost down. W silence duration up at earlier ranks.

In theory, Vorpal Spikes is a lot of consistent power for a melee character. In practice, Cho’Gath’s low mobility makes it a struggle to land more than a few attacks on any moving target. We’re windowing Vorpal Spikes so Cho’Gath only needs to land a few attacks to get the full value, and adding a slow to the ability to give him a better shot at doing so.

DianaPassive’s attack speed now procs off spellcasts and increases with E rank. Passive attack now restores mana. Q cooldown reduced at early levels. W mana cost reduced at early levels.

Diana’s a champion with fractured identities, sitting somewhere in the middle of assassin and diver, laner and jungler. While this multifaceted nature works for some champions, we’ve seen what happens when an assassin gets to be tanky, or when a diver gets to blow people up. This makes Diana difficult to tune on a patch-by-patch basis, since we can’t responsibly balance Diana around a single identity without first giving her the tools to succeed in that role. (Read: she needs an update.)

In the meantime, it’s plain to see Diana simply isn’t fitting in anywhere. We’re tackling two aspects of Diana that hold true regardless of playstyle by alleviating some of her mana problems and better rewarding Diana for playing into her spellcaster/basic-attacker playstyle - the dual nature we’re happy to support.

Playing around Vitals gives Fiora a lot of power, but her opponents are at too much of a disadvantage to stop her from doing so. When Fiora’s striking lone Vitals, the movement speed Duelist’s Dance provides often lets her escape retaliation. When Fiora goes all-in with her ultimate, the movement speed she gets allows her too much leeway to out-maneuver her opponent even before hitting any Vitals at all. In both cases, Fiora’s movement speed rewards need to be toned down so opponents have a fair chance to win the game of footsies.

Garen provides his opponents with a healthy amount of counterplay as his opponents learn to kite. This leaves Garen with not that much skill expression of his own, making the “skill” in “skill matchup” pretty one-sided. We’re giving Courage a skill check to make Garen a little less straightforward, letting the beastliest Garens flex their muscles and show off. While we were on Garen, we took this opportunity to modernize his passive by shifting it from a 3-tier model to one that transforms once around the end of laning phase.

All in all, we still think there’s more that can be done to make Garen more compelling in the future, so take these changes as the start of a larger Garen conversation.

We've begun a multi-patch project to assess which vision-granting abilities should give vision, and which ones just sort of... do (see below). In Ivern's case, Brushmaker generally requires an ally to walk into it to be valuable, and so we think the vision granted makes sense; itís just castable at too high a range. We're aware this has ramifications beyond Ivern's ability to scout, and if the change results in a larger power-down than expected (this is meant to hit Ivern's utility and safety) we'll follow up accordingly.

Defensive Ball Curl’s self-slow is proving a bit too painful for Rammus players, so we’re tuning it less aggressively. Plus, with this patch’s Thornmail update having less synergy with the Armordillo’s passive (less armor and less armor scaling on the new Thornmail), the Armordillo could use a buff anyway.

Singed isn’t on our VGU list for the near future, so we wanted to find opportunities to bring Singed’s existing abilities into 2017. The big issues we wanted to address: his build inflexibility and his struggles against slippery champions.

Empowered Bulwark meant that Singed relied on mana items for efficient durability. Instead, we’re giving him higher base durability and letting him itemize more freely. His new passive ensures Singed has the stickiness and closing power a growing melee champion needs.

While Noxious Slipstream should assist him in getting to opponents, Singed is still harshly countered by slippery champions. Mega Adhesive grounding those standing within it should give Singed more of a chance to get to those champions.

Finally, we’re shifting Poison Trail’s damage from base values into scaling so Singed can feel good about building damage when snowballing, rather than always feeling best about Righteous Glory.

Base stats

BASE HEALTH :[542.76]⇒ 610

HEALTH GROWTH :[82]⇒ 90

Passive - Noxious Slipstream

NAME :

[Empowered Bulwark]

⇒

Noxious Slipstream

NOXIOUS SLIPSTREAM When Singed passes within 225 range of a champion, he drifts off of them, gaining 20% bonus movement speed for 2 seconds. This effect has a champion-unique 10 second cooldown.

EMPOWERED BULWARK Singed no longer gains health based on his maximum mana

Q - Poison Trail

BASE DAMAGE :

[44/68/92/116/140]

⇒

40/60/80/100/120

RATIO :[0.6]⇒ 0.8 ability power

MORE CLOUDY Particle size increased to more clearly represent the poison’s area of effect

While Taric’s ult makes him one of the best supports in the late game, the penalty he’s paying in the early game is currently too steep. Starlight’s Touch is lackluster at early ranks, but prioritizing it can feel like a trap since its mana cost shoots through the roof for the 10-healing-per-charge each rank provides. While the core concept of Starlight’s Touch remains the same, we’re updating most of the details to make it a much more satisfying part of Taric’s kit.

We’re also upping Dazzle’s payoff. It’s a fairly difficult ability to land, and for how vulnerable Taric becomes when Dazzle misses, he deserves to win trades a bit more convincingly when it connects.

Base stats

MANA REGEN :[5]⇒ 8.5 per 5 seconds

MANA REGEN GROWTH :[1]⇒ 0.8

Passive - Starlight's Touch

HEALING PER CHARGE :

[20/30/40/50/60 (+0.2 AP)(+1.5% Taric’s bonus health)]

⇒

30 (+0.2 ability power)(+1% Taric’s maximum health)

MAX CHARGES :

[3 at all ranks]

⇒

1/2/3/4/5

COST :

[60/80/100/120/140]

⇒

70/80/90/100/110

mana

COOLDOWN 3 seconds

RECHARGE RATE : 15 seconds (unchanged)

BRAVADO

Empowered attacks reduce Starlight’s Touch’s

[recharge timer by an additional 5 seconds]

⇒

cooldown by 1 second and instantly grant a charge

E - Dazzle

DAMAGE :

[60/105/150/195/240]

⇒

100/145/190/235/280

COOLDOWN :

[15 at all ranks]

⇒

17/16/15/14/13

seconds

STUN DURATION :

[1/1.125/1.25/1.375/1.5]

⇒

1.25 seconds at all ranks

YorickMist Walker base damage down early game. Maiden of the Mists health up late game. Mist Walkers more responsive, graves more consistent.

Yorick does quite well in the early game, but the Shepherd of Souls falls off pretty hard as the game goes on. We want to support his mid-to-late-game split pushing fantasy, so we’re giving the Maiden more late-game durability and a lower cooldown to increase her uptime.

Passive - Shepherd of Souls

MIST JUMPERS Mist Walkers now attack immediately upon landing from the E Jump

MIST WALKER BASE DAMAGE :

[10-95]

⇒

2-100

(at levels 1-18)

MIST WALKER RATIO : 0.3 total attack damage (unchanged)

MOURNING MIST REACTION RANGE :[1000]⇒ 1400

GRAVE DESPAWN RANGE :[1600]⇒ 2000

R - Eulogy of the Isles

COOLDOWN :

[160/150/140]

⇒

160/130/100

seconds

BASE HEALTH :

[700/1500/3000]

⇒

700/1500/4000

Mid-Patch 7.13 Balance Update

The changes here were made partway through patch 7.13. We’re re-posting them here for anyone who missed ‘em in the update to the 7.13 patch notes.

Items

Against champions and teams that lean on heavy healing and regeneration effects, tanky melee types sometimes feel like they’re actually hurting their team by serving as convenient health batteries. While mages have Morellonomicon and other carries have Executioner’s Calling to help focus down healing-oriented threats, we wanted to make sure that melee champs can at least force high-sustain damage dealers to look elsewhere for their healing.

Thornmail’s redesign makes it a strong answer to healing-heavy comps, but its price point is too high for it to serve as a timely reaction to an out-of-control threat. We’re introducing Bramble Vest to make the Thorns passive available at lower gold investments. This is a paradigm you’re probably familiar with on other items: Hexdrinker into Maw of Malmortius, Quicksilver Sash into Mercurial Scimitar, etcetera.

While an early skill point was a unique and novel reward for Ancient Coin’s quest, it also didn’t line up well with what Coin’s core users want to do: guide their team into and out of fights (your Rakans, your Jannas). We’re replacing it with a more familiar effect that provides supports the means to serve as “GO HERE” guideposts for their teammates, giving them the edge when determining where a fight goes down.

Randuin’s is the item to buy when you’re looking to counter crit-focused champions, but even then, it’s a bit weaker than it ought to be. We’re giving Randuin’s a bit more bang for the buck and changing its build path to make it easier to to pivot away from (or toward) as the situation warrants.

HEALTH :[350]⇒ 400

BUILD PATH :

Warden's Mail

[+ Ruby Crystal + Ruby Crystal + 1100 gold]

⇒

+ Giant's Belt + 900 gold (2900 gold total cost unchanged)

Recommended Items Pass

We’ve updated the default recommended items pages for a bunch of champions (mainly supports) to reflect some of the item updates from across the season.

Lethality Items

General Notes

We originally introduced lethality to give us finer control over flat armor penetration’s impact at various points in the game and to separate assassin items from those of other physical damage dealers. As they exist today, lethality items are generally on the weak side and aren’t offering assassins real choice in their builds (just rush Ghostblade every game).

Looking at the options, Youmuu’s Ghostblade (roaming power) and Duskblade of Draktharr (damage proc, vision denial) should be competing for an assassin’s first buy as the pure-offense Dirk upgrades. In practice, Duskblade is behind the curve on pretty much every front. We’re leveling the playing field between the two blades in terms of build path, cost, and stats to create a more compelling choice.

As a result of this work, Ghostblade is reclaiming its monopoly on movement speed among armor penetration items. But, with mobility removed, the Dirk items need a different way to help assassins carry advantages forward. Changing lethality from enemy-scaling to self-scaling fills this gap while advancing our original goals by pushing it further away from bot-laners (who tend to be lower level).

Final note: Dirk’s upgrades have generally lost attack damage and gained lethality. The idea here is similar to our durability work in midseason: siphon strength out of the generalist stat (AD) and into the specialized stat (lethality).

The Headhunter passive rewards assassins for premeditated trades and kill attempts, adding a chunk of damage to their combos if they last-hit a minion or monster before going on the offensive. It also serves as a wave or camp clearing tool for champions with area-effect abilities, enabling the roaming Dirk’s movement speed previously encouraged.

Bonus context: Headhunter is basically Dirk’s original passive with a facelift. Where the previous version was a smaller, persistent effect best suited for ranged poke and harass (proccing off basic attacks and single-target spells), this one’s a larger effect on a cooldown that triggers off any damaging ability. Headhunter is better aimed at assassins than the original and should be more rewarding for them to play around.

UNIQUE PASSIVE Headhunter After killing an enemy, your next damaging spell will deal 40 bonus physical damage to all enemies it hits (30 second cooldown)

OUT OF COMBAT MOVEMENT SPEED No longer grants 20 out of combat movement speed

Duskblade has the harshest build path of any Dirk upgrade as well as a passive that’s most effective in a glass cannon build (which leaves assassins susceptible to being blown up in fights before they can get their combos off). Both these factors make it unattractive as a first purchase, leaving Youmuu's as the only option for every AD assassin. To make Duskblade more competitive, we’re giving it Youmuu's cost and build path, and ensuring Nightstalker stands on its own even if Duskblade’s the only lethality item an assassin gets to buy.

TOTAL COST :[3250 gold]⇒ 2900 gold

BUILD PATH :

Serrated Dirk +

[B. F. Sword + 850 gold]

⇒

Caulfield’s Warhammer + 700 gold

LETHALITY :[15]⇒ 18

ATTACK DAMAGE :[65]⇒ 55

OUT OF COMBAT MOVEMENT SPEED No longer grants 20 out of combat movement speed

COOLDOWN REDUCTION Now grants 10% cooldown reduction

NIGHTSTALKER DAMAGE :

[75 (+2.0 lethality) true damage]

⇒

90 + 15 per level (105 - 360 at levels 1-18) physical damage

NIGHTSTALKER SLOW Nightstalker now slows the target by 99% for 0.25 seconds

Doubling down on Ghostblade’s identity as the mobility-oriented Dirk upgrade, now that it’s the only one that grants movement speed. It already offers every damage stat a physical assassin wants (attack damage, lethality, and cooldown reduction) so we didn’t need to do much else here.

Edge of Night faces steep competition with Maw of Malmortius and Mercurial Scimitar in the “magic resist items for squishy champs” space - a competition it tends to lose. We’re switching the MR to health so assassins can buy Edge and Maw or Scimitar, making it viable against all-physical-damage teams in the process. This does come with a downside: the health makes it harder to maximize the Giant Slayer bonus from Lord Dominik’s Regards (especially if The Black Cleaver’s in the mix as well).

TOTAL COST : 3100 gold (unchanged)

BUILD PATH :

Serrated Dirk + Pickaxe +

[Null-Magic Mantle + 675 gold]

⇒

Ruby Crystal + 725 gold

OUT OF COMBAT MOVEMENT SPEED No longer grants 20 out of combat movement speed

LETHALITY :[15]⇒ 18

ATTACK DAMAGE : 55 (unchanged)

HEALTH Now grants 250 health

MAGIC RESIST No longer grants 35 magic resist

Krugs

Medium sized Krugs can now be Smited!

Medium Krugs do enough damage and have enough health that Smiting them isn’t really a waste of cooldown, so we’re giving you the ability to do so.

Vision Abilities

A number of abilities in League of Legends grant vision, whether through a debuff on the champions it hits or a summoned object that grants vision around itself. Abilities like Hawkshot obviously should give vision, because that’s their job. We’re starting from removing vision from some summoned terrain - like Pillar of Ice - which are primarily used for other purposes (disruption in this case), yet also give vision for some reason. Brushmaker, on the other hand, generally requires an ally to walk into it to be valuable, and so we think the vision granted makes sense; it’s just castable at too high a range. Overall, we’ll looking at vision-granting abilities in future patches in order to create more consistency around the “uh-oh, they can see me!” experience.

Trundle’s Pillar of Ice no longer gives vision around the cast area

Ivern’s Brushmaker cast range changed to [1600] ⇒ 800

Anivia’s Crystallize no longer gives vision around the cast area

Attack & Ability Queueing

Many abilities are meant to get champions within striking range of their foes. In these situations, we often add an attack command at the end of the ability so champions aren’t standing around awkwardly after closing in on an enemy. Based on how input queueing works in League, however, this attack command overwrites any attempt to queue a second ability during the original ability’s cast time. We’re modifying a bunch of abilities so the hidden attack command no longer overwrites spell queueing attempts, but will still work if a second ability isn’t cast. Let us know if you think we’ve left something off the list!

THIS IS A BIT CONFUSING : Changed several interactions where abilities overwrote any spell queuing commands, instead forcing the caster to immediately begin basic-attacking once the ability completed.

SO HERE’S AN EXAMPLE : If Pantheon tried to queue Heartseeker Strike during Aegis of Zeonia’s dash, he’d begin basic-attacking the target once Aegis of Zeonia completed instead of casting Heartseeker Strike.

BUT WHAT ABOUT MY… : This change only affects the following abilities:

Affected abilities

Aatrox’s Dark Descent

Amumu’s Bandage Toss

Darius’s Apprehend

Ekko’s Phase Dive and Chronobreak

Elise’s Spider Venomous Bite

Evelynn’s Ravage

Irelia’s Bladesurge

Kha’Zix’s Taste Their Fear

Kindred’s Mounting Dread

Lee Sin’s Resonating Strike

Maokai’s Twisted Advance

Pantheon’s Aegis of Zeonia

Poppy’s Heroic Charge

Rek’Sai’s Void Rush

Talon’s Noxian Diplomacy

Ranked Flex

It sucks to be working your way up the Ranked Flex ladder with a group of friends, and then suddenly have your group become invalidated because someone happened to advance into the next tier before the rest of the group. This was happening a lot for groups around Diamond, where restrictions really started tightening, so we’re relaxing the high-MMR restrictions originally placed on Flex parties.

RELAXED RESTRICTIONS : Ranked Flex party restrictions are [the same as Solo Queue (Diamond, Master, and Challenger parties have tighter restrictions)]⇒ identical for all Tiers. All Ranked Flex parties can now include players within one Tier, including Diamond, Master, and Challenger parties.

Rotating Game Mode

Dark Star: Singularity runs from 7/14/17 12:00 PT to 7/18/17 04:00 PT and 7/21/17 11:00 PT to 7/25/17 04:00 PT. Play as Dark Star Thresh in a 3v3 match on the Cosmic Ruins, which features a Dark Star Thresh announcer and chilling music.

Hook or Flay opposing players and Abyss Scuttlers into the black hole in the center of the map to gain points.

You’ll fly further the more damage you’ve taken, but you can’t die from health loss.

The first team to 100 points wins the round, and the first team to win two rounds wins the game.

The Singularity calls. Will you answer?

2016 SKT T1 Skin Updates

The 2016 SKT T1 skins have each received custom audio effects! In addition, water effects have been added to SKT T1 Nami’s loading screen art.

Bugfixes

Fixed a bug causing the first raven of Swain’s Ravenous Flock to visually spawn from the blue side fountain

Phantom Dancer no longer prevents some champion abilities (primarily stealth effects) from ignoring unit collision when no enemy champions are nearby - the condition for Phantom Dancer’s own immunity to unit collision

Rek’Sai now properly marks targets for Void Rush even when the damage is completely blocked by a shield

Blast Cones no longer fizzle when triggered by a burrowed Rek’Sai at maximum attack range

When Zilean tries to walk into range to activate Time in a Bottle on an out-of-range ally, he’ll no longer cast his most recently-used ability instead once he gets into range. Something something time joke.

Zilean’s Time Warp cast range indicator has been reduced to match the actual range

Tools

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